The internet giant announced Friday that it will hire 12 new lobbying firms in light of recent antitrust probes against the company.  Google told The Hill that Akin, Gump; Bingham; Capitol Legislative Strategies; Chesapeake Group; Crossroad Strategies; Gephardt Group; Holland & Knight; Normandy Group; Prime Policy; The First Group; The Madison Group; and the Raben Group were being retained to tell its story in Congress and the FTC.

Crowell Strategies, R.B. Murphy & Associates and the Lugar Group, which were not listed, have all registered to lobby for Google this year.  Of those disclosed to The Hill, only Holland & Knight has filed an LD-1 registration.

According to Crowell Strategies‘ Lobbyists.info profile, Google is the company’s largest client, with $52,500 in income reported for last quarter to lobby on communications and copyright/patent/trademark issues.  Crowell also represents Cablevision Systems Corporation, Earthlink emily deschanel pokies, DirecTV Group, Consumer Electronics Association, T-Mobile USA, and Zoom Telephonics on similar issues.

R.B. Murphy & Associates, however, represents clients on a broader range of issues, and reported <$5,000 in earnings from Google for Q1 2011.  The Lugar Group, which has no reported any income as of yet, also represents a broad range of issues  for its various clients.  Holland & Knight, LLP, while also representing a wide array of issues, is also the largest of the firms recently registered to represent Google, with more than 1,150 attorneys in 23 offices across the U.S. and around the world and more than $19million in lobbying revenue last year, according to the firm’s Lobbyists.info profile.  Holland & Knight, LLP is also the latest firm to register to lobby for Google, with a filing date of June 21.